SCHNAYDERMAN'S x PAUL MPAGI SEPUYA

As an addition to the Spring/Summer 2021 collection, we are releasing a collaborative capsule collection together with LA based photographer Paul Mpagi Sepuya.

The capsule collection is based on Paul’s photographs where previously unpublished work is printed on some of our staple silhouettes. All proceeds from the project will benefit Robert Giard Foundation Grant for Emerging LBGTQ Photographers. The organization supports the creation of work by emerging LGBTQ+ photographers whose projects address issues of sexuality, gender, or LGBTQ+ identity.

Paul Mpagi Sepuya’s photography foregrounds an entangled relationship between artist, subject and viewer moving across traditional portraiture, staging, and abstraction. With a self-conscious play of presentation and concealing, his pictures complicate queer and Black subject positions within surface and reflection, the presence of lens and mirror, and in rendering visible touch and trace. The images in this collection connect the studio photographs for which Sepuya is most well known with almost abstract fragmentation of phone camera snapshots that make up the artist’s ongoing Roses at Night and Some Recent Pictures projects. Showcased both unto themselves and as the raw material for the torn and cut prints that populate the walls and mirrors in the studio, in this collection the images evoke the playful layering of intimacy and touch with the studio and interacting with the world at large.

With a collection inspired by the concept of “Identity” the collaboration feels natural. The way Paul explore this theme through his photography and the fragmented portrayal of his subjects sheds light on the dynamics of seeing and being seen.

“I found Paul’s work when I was doing research for the Spring/Summer 2021 collection. I love how intuative he is in his expression, cutting up pieces of a photo to create a new one. He is unafraid in his work and that really resonates with us. His work with LGBTQ+ issues is something that is close to my heart. He gives people who historically have had to hide a space to be seen and heard“ says Creative Director Hampus Bernhoff.

Shop the capsule collection here.